Rivière Noire
Information for planning a canoe trip down the Noire River in Quebec.
Embedded Files
Sand, curves and whitewater. The Noire is a fascinating river to canoe down since it's primarily through sandier soil which makes for an incredibly winding narrow river with no lakes. When the river touches on Canadian shield granite, it makes for some real fun whitewater. The downside is that most of the campsites are on beaches in the inside of switchback turns in the river. While camping on sand can be fun for a few hours, it gets annoying pretty fast.
Since we're primarily riverphiles, it was nice to not have to cross large lakes, or any lakes at all, but there was a trade off. Eventually, we started to miss the long view and the sections of constant switch backs started to lose their charm by the end.
A nice part is that if you get out at the old Black River Inn take-out, it's over 10 km of almost constant fast moving swifts to float your way home. It was a nice way to finish a river.
The Noire is pretty easy to access with a reasonable portage road compared to other rivers in the region. It has very few portages and if you're not into people, you'll not likely run into many on this river. We don't mind encountering fellow paddlers and it's nice to connect with fellow paddlers. We only encountered two groups on our trip.
We were happy to have run the Noire in late June 2025 and enjoyed the whitewater, but it didn't have the same draw to pull us back again like its sister river the Dumoine. Still, it was an excellent trip and we were quite satisfied to have paddled another great Ottawa Valley river.
Planning information
Nights: Anywhere from 2 and up. There are lots of options for put-ins.
Paddling distance: 238 total km, but you can choose however much you want to paddle. See the custom map below for ideas.
We put in at Forant Creek and took out at Black River Inn (87 km) and spent 4 nights on the river.
Outfitter: You can shuttle yourself with two or more cars or use an outfitter. The road is pretty decent.
Esprit Whitewater — This is the service we used. We had an excellent shuttle driver named Dennis Blaedow drive our truck back to the take out.
Possible put-ins: See custom map below for ideas. They are marked with a boat launch icon.
Water levels: There aren't any public metres that we're aware of, but you can message Dennis Blaedow through his Facebook page and he'll definitely give you the deets.
Other resources:
The Coulonge-Noire crossover: For those looking for a longer trip with the best whitewater of both the Coulonge and the Noire rivers, there's a crossover path through a series of lakes and portages to get you from one river to the other. It's in French, but the best maps outlining where to do this is available through cartespeinair.org here.
Other issues:
Sand: You'll need to plan for the sand.
Table: Sand is so easily kicked into pots or plates when cooking on sand so we brought along a small folding table (this style) that would never otherwise bring on a whitewater canoe trip. It worked out well.
Chair modification: Helinox-style camp chairs will sink into the sand so you'll need something to prevent that. Some trippers use punctured tennis balls, but four balls for each chair starts to add up. We opted for a screen-like device that straps on to the bottom of the legs. Helinox sells an expensive one but this cheaper one we picked up worked perfectly.
Cache drop: If you want to take a little risk, you can drop a small hidden cache in the bush to be picked up half way through your trip. There's a little river access point near the road on the drive up. Just ask your shuttle driver to stop for a second. The ideal location is marked on the map below with a beer icon. :) If you download the map area into Google Maps before you go, you're location on the map will work perfectly on your phone (read about using Google maps as a GPS device here). Manually save a pin to that spot on your phone since this custom map will not work offline. You'll be able to see your own saved pins and will be able to find your cache location.
Custom map
A sandy, winding river
It's a seriously winding river. It's quite beautiful in the way the path keeps changing leaving elbow lakes behind.
The topography is very different from the Dumoine. The soft sandy soil makes for a river that evolves and moves. In the 30 years since Hap Wilson drew the drawings for his Rivers of the Upper Ottawa Valley book, this river has closed some of those loops and made new ones.
Guide book for the Noire River
We highly recommend the classic guidebook for the Rivers of the Upper Ottawa Valley by Hap Wilson. You can remove a lot of the guess work around what is runnable and what is not and learn a great deal about the river. It's available from Haps' own website as well as other booksellers.
We took pictures of the pages and printed them out to bring a long in a map case. We also had those pictures on a smart phone throughout the trip. If you do that, just don't share the pictures since people should just buy the book. It's a great deal for an invaluable resource for these rivers.
Photos from our June 2025 Noire trip
Dennis Blaedow—keeper of the river
We didn't get a picture of him with his eyes open, but this dude really has his eyes on the river. Dennis shuttled us on the Noire and shared incredible stories and information about the area. He was helpful and patient and when we got off the river early, he dropped everything to come pick us up early. In the off season he works on environmental protection and promotion of the river. If you're looking for more information about the Noire, there's no better source. You can connect with him through his Facebook page and he'll be happy to help.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse